Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Refocusing My Collection

I've had a few months away from the hobby now and honestly it's been awesome. I found myself a new hobby (model railroading) this summer and really just lost interest in collecting cards for a while. Not sure why, I was totally into it from late 2009 through April of this year.

I even contemplated giving up completely and selling off my collection to help pay for my new expensive hobby. I came close but decided to hold onto everything and just wait until I felt the need to collect again. For whatever reason I think that time is now. The new hockey season is in full swing and I've been trying to follow the Red Wings as closely as possible, which has refueled my interest in hockey in general.

Now that I've had a chance to take a step back and look at my collection as a whole, I think there is some cutting back that can be done. I think having three separate player collections is too much for me. I think having so many set projects going at the same time is too much for me. All that being said, here's what I plan on reducing my primary collecting goals to:

1) Jimmy Howard
This has been the main focus of my collection for the last few years and I plan to keep it that way. Howard is still my favorite player and even though he's having an off-year, I still want to keep adding to the collection. He has some really neat cards out there right now and I've got almost a year's worth to catch up on at this point.


2) MVP Stanley Cup Edition Parallels
This set is one of the reasons I started the blog and it remains a top priority, although with a slight change in direction. Rather than trying to go for the master set, I'd like to focus on only the Silver, Gold, and Super Scripts for now. I'll hold onto the other inserts and what not, I just won't continue to pursue the rest of them. This makes completion feel a lot more attainable and the parallels are the only reason I started going after this set, it just got out of hand when I thought to do the entire master set.


3) Detroit Red Wings
I've been collecting Wings cards since the day I got into hockey cards. I like the variety that you get when collecting a team, especially one of the Original Six. I don't plan on going after any big ticket items, but I will continue to be on the lookout for cool base and inserts to add to this ever expanding part of my collection.


4) Metal Universe
Here's another one that I plan to stick with, only with more changes. I'm going to forget going after the inserts and focus solely on the base sets. I say sets because I'm adding the 12-13 set from UD Fleer Retro. I love the look of both sets and they would look great next to one another once completed. I'm just three cards away from having the original 96-97 set done and there are 60 cards for me to go after with the new set.


5) Side Projects
I'm going to lump together my Goaltending Gallimaufry, Captured on Cardboard and Masks into this category. I'm no longer going to keep track of which Mask cards I need on the sidebar, I'll just keep a count of what I have and add them as I come across great deals. The other two projects are probably the most fun I have collecting since they give new life to base cards, so I really want to continue to pursue both of them.


So that's the plan for now. I am not planning on coming back into the whole collecting thing at the level I was at before. Now that I have another time-consuming and relatively expensive hobby competing with this, I will be a lot more selective on which cards I buy and when. That being said, I do not plan on getting back into a post per day pace or anything, I'll just try to be more active than I have been for the last 8 months or so. 

7 comments:

  1. Welcome back Paul!

    Glad to hear you had a fun time away and have re-assessed your collecting.

    All the best during the holiday season and a fantastic 2014!

    Cheers!

    ReplyDelete
  2. It is hard maintaining two diverse hobbies. In my own experiences, one hobby tends to wax while the other wanes.

    It was like that with action figures and hockey cards in the late 1980s, where hockey became my main focus (but figures were still a hobby).

    In the late 1990s, action figures again became my main focus, and hockey cards became a here and there kind of thing.

    Then in the mid-2000s -- really after the 2006 Olympics -- hockey cards were back for me, and my action figure hobby died down.

    I guess the point I'm trying to make is, do whatever makes you happy. It's cool to have more than one hobby, and you can always return to it later in life.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I am definitely finding out that its hard to maintain both at the same level. Model railroading is a lot more hands on and time consuming than hockey cards, and it can be expensive depending on how you go about it.

      Cards give me something a bit more simple but still plenty enjoyable. Moving forward I will try to balance both, but will likely lean towards one at any given time.

      Right now I just finished the layout I was working on, so I may jump back into the card world a bit more actively for a little while here.

      Delete
  3. Congratulations on the new hobby. Glad to hear you didn't completely sell off your hockey card collection. Sounds like you have a solid plan for your PC's. I probably should consider narrowing down my collecting needs too. Happy Holidays!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi Paul, nice to see you back. I do some model rail roading myself, it's a complete blast!Trains are fun because they are much more hands on than collecting cards Hockey cards are still a main focus for me though! I have narrowed down my want list which really helps as well. Keep doing what you enjoy!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's cool, just curious, what scale do you model in? I'm an HO scale modeler.

      Delete